Life is a Circus

I feel like I may begin sticking to the couch soon from the amount of time I’ve spent here, lounging across it with the same ratty old blanket. The television is almost constantly on, an endless blur in the background of my life as I stare blankly through it as if it were simply any other piece of furniture. Cheese curls adjourn my body and undoubtedly the couch cushions beneath me. This has become my spot, the spot where I’ve spent most of my days since approximately June. It’s now October.

In June I lost my job at the local Gas Station, because I was coming into work late for no other reason besides my desire to do exactly what I currently spend all my days doing. Being fired by Dave felt a lot like a betrayal. He hired me my junior year of high school, and he’s the one who told me not to go to college because “at the rate I was going I was on the fast track to management”. When he fired me I had just begun my second year out of school, a point where it begins to feel like you can never go back. Dave screwed me. He screwed me in the worst possible way.

So now here I am, making special friends with the couch at my parents' house, where I still live—destined to spend the rest of my life as a single low-life who still lives with his parents.

Suddenly the television shuts off and the room gets just a little darker, the only light being the sun blazing through the windows. “It’s time to get up Mickey,” says the soft voice of my mother, standing beside my new bed. We go through this every morning so I don’t hesitate with my reply. “Yeah, sure, I’ll get up while you’re at work. Can you turn the TV back on?”

“No Mike.” I shoot up into a sitting position, my mother’s here every morning, but not my father. He’s usually upstairs and still sleeping, not really giving a damn whether I ever get up or not.

“See, we talked to a therapist,” my mother begins to explain, fiddling with her thumbs and looking intently at the carpeting. “They think it would be best for you to leave. No, not permanently!” she assures, holding her hands up in defense. “But until you find a job, well, you can’t stay here.”

“We aren’t going to enable you any longer,” my father chimes in. “It’s time for you to get out there and start in the work force again. Or you can go to college…” he lets his voice trail off, knowing the thought isn’t very likely.

“So, what you’re saying is, you’re kicking me out of the house with no money and no car, until I find a job?” I ask, wanting to make sure that my parents truly have lost their last few marbles.

“Well, yeah. How else are you going to pay rent?” my father asks rhetorically, a look which somewhat resembles satisfaction on his face.

To really demonstrate to you how set in stone my parents decisions are after they’ve made up their mind, in less than an hour I’m showered, and dressed and outside my cookie-cutter house with an old backpack. My parents stand in the doorway and wave before shutting the door and returning to whatever their day entails. Probably decapitating puppies or stealing candy from unsuspecting toddlers.

So I spend my day, which could be filled with cartoons and re-runs of Boy Meets World, applying to every chain store I could think of. I pass the Gas Station several times, seriously considering going in and begging Dave for my job back. Maybe by some twist of fate he doesn’t even work there anymore, and I could convince the new manager that I had left for college or something. But no, that’s too risky and I’m not the begging type.

The sun finally sets, as it often does, and I am still jobless and homeless and it’s a cold New England Autumn night. I sit on the sidewalk dejectedly, hoping that one of my old buddies will drive by and take mercy on a friend in need. But they’re all at college, with football scholarships much like the one I had given up. I never claimed to be very smart, which is probably one of the main reasons I refuse to do the college thing. I’m young and I make dumb decisions and think with my dick and college for me would only equal trouble.

My head turns quickly on its own accord as I hear a whistling sound come from behind me. I’m not exactly from the bad part of town, but there have been known instances of crimes. Knowing my luck I would be the first murder here in something like forty years. But walking out of the woods behind me doesn’t seem to be a murderer. Murderers aren’t old with a hunched back, a cane, and long snow white Santa Claus beards. “I walk out into the night to find a lost soul on this destitute path, one cannot help but question what one so young is doing here by himself in the wee middle of the night." His voice is haunting and crackly. Linda Blair meets Pee-Wee Herman meets Manson. For a moment I wonder if my instinct was wrong, and he is going to kill me.

“Hoping for a job to come fall onto my lap,” I grumble, watching the moths fly around in the light of the street lamp, and hoping he’ll get bored with my faded interest and leave.

“Hmm…” he says thoughtfully, scratching his bearded chin. “Well it does seem that luck has found its way into our young protagonist’s life. And in the form of an old man no less!” he announces with a beaming smile. This sparks my attention and though I’m not completely sure what he’s going on about, I turn in his direction.

“What are you talking about? Are you offering me a job?” I ask skeptically, one eyebrow almost completely hidden by my hairline.

“Well one only needs to follow the yellow brick road to see!” He lets out an almost frog-like cackle. “And I am the walrus it appears.” He seems very much to enjoy his own jokes, and I’m happy he does if only it means one person understands them.

“Oh, right. So you can lead me into your dark, scary cabin in the woods, cut-off all my skin and wear it as a Halloween costume? No thanks, old man.” I shake my head, and briefly consider trying to hitch a ride, anything to get me out of my current situation.

He laughs once more. “Oh I’m much too old for that John Wayne Gacy, Helter Skelter crap! Come, follow the leader and you won’t be disappointed!”

I don’t know why but for some reason I’m compelled to follow him, it just feels like the right thing to do.